


Shahmaran

by dirthmaharellan (lectrolamb)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, F/M, Non-Lavellan Dalish Inquisitor, Nonbinary Character, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2018-12-24 21:30:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12021387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lectrolamb/pseuds/dirthmaharellan
Summary: In the desert, an Elven hero is raised. Born to Tevene slaves, sent into the wilds to be given a second chance at freedom, and taken in by a Dalish clan in turmoil. She raises her clan to triumph, bonds with a serpent-spirit of Glory, and comes of age with the Elves. But with adulthood beckons the call to adventure, to her destiny, and she must leave her home. She travels east with her familiar, through Kirkwall where she briefly makes a living as a pirate, and finally to the Conclave. It seems that the Inquisition is the answer to her calling - an answer that raises a thousand questions, opens the door to heights of power and depths of danger unimaginable, and drags her into a web of lovers, friends, enemies, and some who blur the lines between.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> experiments in an un-reluctant Inquisitor, a custom Dalish clan, and the darker side of some companion relationships 
> 
> *TW for suicidal ideation*

 

Her people were dying.

Her people, her _clan_ , were dying and there was nothing she could do.

She was meant to guide them. Protect them. _Keeper._ It was her name, her title, her duty.

She'd failed. How colossally, she'd failed.

Tevinter slavers hounded them from the North. Took all able-bodied elves and killed those who dare to fight back. Very few had the strength, anyway. The desert ravaged them - strange diseases, starvation and dehydration, heat more than any mortal body could endure. Their halla suffered with them, hardly able to produce any milk. The Devehari had once been a hardy people. Now, they were weak.

She'd told her advisors she was going on a vision quest. That she saw spirits, salvation, in the dunes and cliffs on the horizon. Let them believe there was hope. Let herself believe it, just a sliver, deep down inside.

Mostly she'd just gone to die in peace.

A coward's way out, she knew. But she couldn't bear the burden any longer. She couldn't live with the shame of having failed her clan, failed her people. A disgrace to the elves. She deserved to die, and they would be better off without her. Maybe she was the curse.

She left with no fanfare, no sign that she would never return. An empty pack, to save face. She tried not to let her eyes linger too long on the faces of those she loved. It was only when the camp was miles behind her that she turned around. To stand for a moment, looking back at her home. To say her goodbyes. Her body had no water to spare for tears.

Every step took her closer to Death, and she could feel it. Her heartbeat thudded through her bones, growing slower and slower, as if winding down. Her lips were cracked and bleeding, and white spots danced in the corners of her vision. Weakly, she shuffled through the sands.

She traveled far into the cliffs below. Massive, undulating rocks built in rings and layers of ochre, cream, and red. A map of the ages. She knew they opened up into a valley, eventually. Partly shaded, but she could find a sunny spot. It would hasten her passing. Remote enough that her scouts would not find her body for days, but open to the sky so the carrion birds and hyenas could take the flesh from her bones. Leaving behind nothing but sun-bleached bones, her existence erased completely.

As she descended into the valley, she reached into the pocket of her threadbare robes. A string of prayer stones, carved from lazurite and engraved with ancient Elvhen script. The translation was long lost to time, but the Dalish kept the meaning close to their hearts. She ran her callused fingers over the stones and prayed.

She prayed for Falon'din to carry her peacefully to the Beyond, to save her spirit from being lost to the void. She prayed for Dirthamen to keep her shameful secrets. She prayed for Mythal to guide her people. And finally, with anger pounding against her chest like a war drum, she prayed for Elgar'nan to bring his infinite, unholy wrath upon the human scum who brutalized and enslaved her people.

Eventually, she entered the valley. The cliffs above her head offered shade, a bittersweet reprieve. She heard running water nearby, and had to fight every single fibre of her body screaming out to run to it and drink so deep she made herself sick. Varghests prowled in the shadows but let her be, as if they could already sense the death that clung to her.

She found a ray of sun, bright and sharp and deadly like a hot knife, and hissed as she sank to the ground. It had been days since she'd ate - she always made sure the rest of the clan ate first, and there was never enough. Never enough. She made herself as comfortable as she could, and began her vigil - sitting and waiting for death.

In her final moments, she reached deep into her mind and recalled her most treasured, comforting memories. She could not remember the face of her mother, but she remembered her voice - soft and sweet, singing Dalish lullabies. She remembered the taste of honey and saffron, and spiced meat when times weren't so lean. She remembered the day her Keeper had named her First - the pride, the sense of purpose. All for nothing. Though she'd never had a mate or children, she remembered the face of the first boy she'd ever loved. His green eyes, the smell of sylvanwood that clung to his skin, the weight of his body above her. She was younger then. Someone might have called her beautiful. These memories would die with her, washed away and buried under the sand.

Her grip on reality began to slack. Her head was much too heavy to hold up, and she let it loll to her shoulders. Directly in her line of vision was a small cactus, a gnarled branch of death root, and a bleached hawk's skull. Perfectly arranged, a still life. She studied every detail, every shadow. This would be the last thing she ever saw in her life.

She felt a cool breeze, and heard the sound of a bell.

_'Don't give up, Mortal.'_

A _whoosh_ behind her, an unearthly blue flash. She laughed weakly.

"Have you come to mock me, spirits? Let an old woman die in peace."

Her vision swam, heatwaves distorting the hawk's skull so it almost looked like it was laughing.

_'Mock you? No, Keeper. We have come to save you.'_

Laboriously, she swallowed. Felt the grit of sand on her tongue. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, she had to squint against what she saw.

A thousand brilliant blue spirit-flares danced in the valley in front of her. Like falling stars or otherworldly torchbugs, they swirled and spiraled, twirling around each other, tumbling and leaping and sparkling so beautifully.

A hallucination. It had to be. Just a dying woman's delusions. Was this her mind's way of comforting her? Something beautiful, before the end? She tried to blink the flares away.

They did not go away. Instead, they joined together to form a figure. An elven woman - impossibly tall, devastatingly beautiful, serene and regal. One hundred faces, one hundred voices, speaking together.

_'Keeper. We see that you suffer. We hear your prayers. You do not need to die just yet.'_

A hallucination. A hallucination. A hallucination. Let me die. _Please just let me die. I don't want to fight anymore._

The voices moved to whisper in her ear.

_'We send you a savior.'_

The figure raised her hand and pointed with long, elegant fingers. The Keeper felt her eyes drawn along.

_'Look at what your Gods will do for you.'_

She hadn't seen it until now. What the figure pointed at. A child, crouched in the shadows on the other side of the valley.

Around five or six years old, from the look of it. Starved skinny, a bundle of gangly limbs shoved into decrepit rags. Brown skin laced with scars, elven ear-tips peaking out from a mass of matted black hair, and feline eyes black as night. She held in her hand a crudely crafted obsidian dagger and watched the varghest with the hungry eyes of a panther. She meant to kill it for food.

_'Raise her.'_ The voices caressed the Keeper's hair, flitting from ear to ear. _'She will grow to be a hero. She will save you all.'_

A hallucination. Just a hallucination. She would die, and the child with her. Her psyche was flailing, desperately attempting to convince her to hang on to life. She would not be fooled.

But the child licked her lips and sank deeper into her crouch, ready to pounce upon her own death, and something broke within the Keeper.

"Child, _no_!"

She shouted, and time seemed to freeze.

The child and the varghest both turned to the Keeper in tandem. The child with wide, wide eyes - shocked and afraid and angry at having her hunt disrupted. The varghest with predatory interest, now that the Keeper showed signs of life. Suddenly, the Keeper's broken body was strong and nimble again.

She leapt to her feet and held a hand outstretched.

"Please, girl. The beast will kill you. I can feed you, back at my camp." A lie. A necessary one. "Come with me."

The girl's eyes darted back and forth between the Keeper and the varghest, as though weighing her options. How long had she been on her own? Where did she come from? What had she endured to stay alive? The Keeper saw some of her own pain mirrored in the child's feral eyes. And maybe the child did too - because she reached out and took the Keeper's hand.

If it was the child's emaciated body or the Keeper's newfound strength she did not know, but the girl was light as a feather as the Keeper scooped her up into her arms. The varghest growled and flared it's scales - a horrible, dark, spindly thing. The child clung to the Keeper's neck. Unaccustomed to having someone to share her fear with.

The Keeper had a reason to live now.   
  
She threw glyphs on the ground in front of her - spells to ensnare the beast, to send flames licking at it's claws, to confuse and disorient it. And with the child in her arms, she turned and ran.

 


	2. Two

 

 

 

Keeper Lailani asked herself, for a long while, if what she'd seen in that valley really had been a hallucination or not.

 

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. She had Yara now.

 

That's what she named the child. The girl seemed to be able to understand when she was spoken to, but she would not speak in return. Whatever her old name had been - if she'd even had one - she didn't object.

 

At first, the clan was angry. _Another mouth to feed._ That's all Yara was. But Lailani made a decision. Even if she didn't fully believe that Yara was a savior, a hero spirit-touched... she might let the clan believe it, if it would make things easier.

 

So she first told Sehron and Isnami. Her closest counsel, scout and shaman. As she expected, rumor spread fast. In a few days time, things had changed. The clan did not treat Yara with hostility. Just a sort of apprehension. It helped that Lailani only dipped into her own rations to feed the child. She could bear the hunger, endlessly, if it meant no one else had to.

 

The child was a strange and feral thing. Despite how ready she'd been to attack that varghest, she was now shy and skittish. Maybe people were more frightening to her than beasts. She kept close to the Keeper, trailing her everywhere, sleeping by her side. As if that was the only place she felt safe.

 

The child was a mage. Whether she knew it or not... Lailani could feel the magic sleeping latent inside her. It was too soon to start planning for the girl's future, but... an idea sprouted in Lailani's mind, involuntarily.

 

Yara wouldn't speak, but she listened very well. And so, in the long days that followed, sitting crosslegged in tent-shade, the Keeper filled her head with everything she could think of.

 

She taught the child Dalish lore - stories of Arlathan's glory, and of it's fall. Stories of their Gods, of their feats and miracles, and of the Great Betrayal in which Fen'Harel the Dread Wolf sealed the Gods away from their subjects forevermore. Stories of Elven immortality, and the Quickening that withered it. Stories of the bumbling cruelty of humans - inelegant, brutal beasts. Stories of the Exalted March, of a long and bloody battle for a battered people to hold on to what little they had left. The stories of mass enslavement were ones she did not need to tell, judging by the way Yara's face darkened at those words. It only confirmed Leilani's suspicions about the child's past. Slavery was nothing new to her. But there was a change. A sort of awareness. It was not just her. She was not alone. The Elven people - _her_ people - suffered together. As one. And some of them fought back. When the nightmares came, of chains and whips and magister's robes, she had a Keeper to hold her until the terrors left - and an entire camp of elves who shared them.

 

Soon she fell in with the clan's children. She still would not speak, but the language of play was universal, and the children were glad to have a new presence in their games. The sound of children's laughter, carefree and effervescent, was balm to the clan's weary soul.

 

Any further doubts dissipated when it became clear that Yara was interested in earning her keep. The one thing she knew, deeper and clearer than anything else, drilled into her since birth. She must work to live, and her worth as a living soul was entirely dependent on her productivity. Guilt, and gratitude towards the people who had saved her life and given her a new home, drove her back into the desert. To hunt.

 

She was on par with most of the clan's hunters. Only a child, but they hadn't faced beasts and sand and starvation as utterly, completely _alone_ as she had. Her kills were not clean, not consecrated by Andruil, but she knew how to track a beast and cut it down. She would leave the camp and come back hours later, dirty and haggard, with small game slung over her shoulder. Once, an entire goat dragged by it's horns. She would drop them wordlessly in front of Lailani's tent - an offering. A small help, but help nonetheless - it lightened the load of the clan's hunters, and filled more bellies than before.

 

Food was one thing - water, however. Altogether more important, and more illusive. It was many months until rainy season, and their stores from the last were dwindling. The sick, the young, and the elderly received priority access. Beyond that, there was scarcely enough to go around. So, when next the moon waxed to fullness, they began the rituals.

 

First, they laid an altar to Mythal. A large stone tablet, engraved with Elvhen script - an ancient artifact, their treasured heritage. The few small things of beauty they possessed - animal skulls inlaid with polished gemstones, desert flowers, woven silks in colors more vibrant than anything Yara had seen in her life. They were offerings. For her blessing. She would not bring the water - _they_ would - though she could clear the way.

 

Then, the songs began. They made no fires, for it could drive away the water. For an instant, there was stillness and serenity. The dunes were bathed in deep indigo-blue moonlight, and silent save the silken rustle of wind across the sands. Just an instant - breathless, aching, crystallized - before the song-leader threw out her first chant and the drums rang out.

 

There were drums and reed-flutes and so many voices singing, too many, far more voices than there were elves in the clan. Yara didn't know where the voices came from and she did not care - she was enthralled, tears biting at her eyes, her jaw hanging open. They sang in a language that none of them knew, but all of them understood. Gradually the song rose in speed and intensity, building and building. Yara looked around the circle. Elves were swaying, clapping, their faces turned to the sky where dark clouds gathered and the moon seemed to swell. The drummer's hands moved too fast to see. All souls joined as one, united in ecstatic song. She wanted to join in - her voice had gone unused for so long. Instead, she clapped in time meekly, drinking in every sound and sight.

 

And then, something strange happened.

 

She _felt_ water.

 

A sudden awareness, like being watched. A silvery blue voice, whispering in her ear. A nagging. A tug. A sensation entirely new, and foreign, and overwhelming.

 

She whipped her head around. If any of the other elves felt the same, they showed no indication of it. As the song climbed to it's crescendo, so did the strange feeling, until the intensity of both was neigh unbearable.

 

A great whip of thunder cracked, lightning split the sky, and a torrential rain began to fall. Yara felt like her skin was attempting to turn itself inside out. She turned on her heel, and ran.

 

Behind her, the elves burst into a flurry of activity. Mighty clay pots as tall as a child had been arranged in a circle, and a small battalion of mages used force magic to channel the water into the pots. The water would be purified, and stored buried in the sand to keep it chilled. This ritual was a success - it would yield enough to last the month. Lailani busied herself overseeing the water-gathering. Nobody noticed Yara slip away.

 

All at once, she was running towards the feeling of water and away from it. She was frightened, and enthralled. Whatever was happening, she knew she had to run, and her feet carried her through the sand with a singleminded determination. She did not know it at the time, but - her magic had awakened. And strange things happened to a mage when that latent spark came to life.

 

The silvery blue voice formed a song, an echo of the one that had just surrounded her at the camp. An aquatic siren's call. As she ran she recalled, in vivid detail, every time she'd been sick or fainted of dehydration. She remembered a mouth and throat full of sand, pain with every breath. She remembered a short life of scarcity - so young, but scarcity was all she knew. And water - water was everything. The source of all life. The pull of it was primal. She had no choice but to pursue.

 

She traveled through dunes and over rocks, past creatures and beasts who let her pass. She ran, and ran, and ran, without thinking or knowing, for an eternity that lasted but a moment. She followed the song. The desert stretched out endlessly ahead of her, a homogenous landscape marked by the occasional cliff or gnarled tree.

 

And then, suddenly, it didn't.

 

She skidded to a halt at the edge of a mighty ravine, crashing back into reality. Dust and pebbles kicked off the cliff and fell down, down, down into the darkness below. She did not hear them land.

 

For a moment, she stood to catch her breath. She'd been running for so long. The ravine in front of her was massive. A wide gash in the earth, draped with desert vines, miles wide and long and deep. The song that came from within... it was thundering. She did not rest long. Still gasping, she began her descent.

 

In her years alone she'd learned to climb very well, both up and down. She knew what made a sturdy foothold, and she had strong hands. It was slow work, but she was capable, and the song drove her on.

 

It was like entering a different world. When her feet hit the ground, a canopy of cliffs and ivy shaded her from the moonlight above. Only moonlight, now, but in daytime... that shade could save a life. She felt soft breezes, heard birds chirping and animals rustling, and in the distance... running water. The song joined with it. They became one. She followed.

 

There were abandoned camps and dilapidated mines. There were hills, valleys, and caves. There was a whole terrain within the ravine. And somewhere within, there was water. Lots of it.

 

She'd never seen anything like it in her life.

 

Like glass, melted and poured into the earth. A complex, sprawling system of pools, crystalline, rippling ever-so-slightly under the fragrant midnight breeze. Lilypads floated along like little fairy boats, and along the banks of the pools grew lush foliage, trees heavy with fruit, more green than seemed possible in one place. _Life_ grew here. Nowhere else in the desert. But it did here. _An oasis._

 

She should’ve turned and ran and brought her Keeper here. The whole clan could come... take shelter in the ravine, grow strong on the springs and plants. And they would. She would. Just... in a moment. Something urged her ever on.

 

She stepped into the water. Ahead, she heard the mighty crash of water falling continuously from a great height. She had no idea what a waterfall was. Never seen one, or even dreamed one could exist. But that's what it was. Water all around, beneath her feet, falling from the sky, so much of it that it was violent. The song was echoing through her bones. Unfathomable.

 

As she moved forward, she splayed her fingers out and ran them through the water that surrounded her, savoring the feeling, watching the ripples. The waterfalls ahead seemed to be curtaining something. Behind the columns of white foam she could see some great stone structure. A building of sorts.

 

There were no buildings in the desert where they roamed. The occasional dilapidated half of a wall or lone empty doorway, lingering from centuries passed, but no buildings. All she'd ever known of mankind's structures were cruel, brutal Tevinter fortresses. Towering beasts of sharp edges and black iron. This was so different.

 

It was a temple. She could tell. The air felt very, very still. Gods and spirits resided here. An arched doorway, inlaid with shining green tiles, and statues of Gods she recognized without knowing, as if she'd seen them in a dream somewhere.

 

A short staircase took her to the entrance. Plants sprouted through the cracks in the stone. Nature was within and without. The doors seemed to stretch all the way to the sky - she craned her neck and could not see the top. There was a seal. A circle, with a system of divots branching out. Without thinking, or understanding why, she placed her hand against the stone. It lit up, for a moment, dazzling blue-white, aqueous luminous. The light quickly faded.

 

"You won't open that door, child."

 

The voice came from somewhere behind her. Androgyne, masculine leaning, unfamiliar accent. She looked, but could not see anyone.

 

"I've been trying for centuries."

 

_'Who is that? Who's there?'_

 

If she merely thought the words or actually spoke them out loud, she was not sure. Her voice had gone unused for so long. Did she even remember how to speak?

 

"Under normal circumstances I would _not_ enjoy having my naps interrupted, but this particular one has lasted since the Blessed Age, so I'd say you came right on time."

 

The scuffle of falling rocks and shuffling dirt set her hairs on end and shifted her into a defensive stance. She was ready to run. She looked everywhere, anywhere, for the speaker.

 

What she saw was a snake, emerging from a pile of moss-covered boulders to the left of the door. He was not large enough to be immediately frightening, nor small enough to appear completely harmless. His scales shone the same emerald green as the temple tiles. He had to be made of actual jewels.

 

It wasn't strange at all, to a child, that a snake would be talking. Her perception had not yet been dampened by arbitrary concepts of reality. Perhaps that was why he even entertained speaking to her. He was intrigued.

 

"Tell me, little one. How did you find this place?"

 

She dropped to her knees, to place herself at his eye level. What a shabby, mangy runt of a girl, he thought. Her spirit was ten feet tall. With little hesitation, she spoke the first words since she'd cried for her mother back in Tevinter.

 

"I followed the water-song.”

 

So she _did_ remember how to speak. It felt good.

 

"Hm," he slithered against the stones, circling her, observing. "Not everyone can hear that, you know. Not so young. You must be special."

 

Her face set itself into headstrong indignation. She remembered the alienage, the slave pens. Chained like cattle ready for the slaughter, soulless bodies full of blood to fuel the arcane appetites of Tevinter. She remembered hollow cruelty in the eyes of every human who looked at her. She remembered being told at every turn that she was lesser.

 

"No I'm not."

 

She spoke firmly, sure as law. And he understood - he knew a slave when he saw one. He'd seen a hundred thousand elves with the same look in their eyes. Like the one certainty they had in life was that they were violently, definitely _unspecial._ But he saw something else in her, too.

 

"Yes, I suppose you would say that. Well, since you've gone and woken me up, I'd like to get to know you a little better. Let's start with a proper introduction. I have been called many names, some kinder than others, but you may call me Majd. Now, tell me yours, girl.”

 

She had one once, before, given by her birth mother. But she couldn't remember it now. That caused her some small amount of sadness, but she had no problem with the name her Keeper had given her. So she told him.

 

"My name is Yara."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

As she returned to camp, she left herself a trail - dropping distinctive pebbles and bones in the sand, so she could find her way back to the ravine. It wasn't far at all - less than an hour's walk. Soon, she had the way memorized.

 

She visited him every day. He did not need to eat to survive, but she brought him live mice, and he enjoyed the diversion. She watched him kill them and drain their blood. A bit of cruelty and a bit of kindness, rolled up into the same gesture.

 

It was clear that she thought this temple was his home, or that it belonged to him in a way. If only she knew how patently untrue that was. She waited a few days, and asked his permission to bring her clan to the oasis. It was endearing. He gladly handed over the keys which were never his in the first place.

 

They brought the sick and the elderly first. Then, the whole clan, when next it was time for the halla to migrate. They’d been brought to a miracle by Yara. Shelter, water, food. Life.

 

Lailani saw what Yara could not. The temple within the oasis was theirs. _Elvhen_. And Majd, the serpent Yara kept coiled around her wrist or draped across her shoulders like a beloved pet... it was no wonder the girl had found her voice at last. She’d captured the attention of a spirit very old, and very powerful. Attention that always came at a price. When the Keeper looked into the serpent’s eyes, she could do nothing but lower her head in reverence.

 

She had no more doubts about what she’d seen in the valley, after that.


	3. 2.5

 

 

 

 

 

 

_In a great blackstone palace, an elven man sat on a throne._

 

_Darkness surrounded him and darkness made him. He wore his chest bare, covered in so many tattoos there was more ink than there was rich brown skin. Ferocious, imposing angles and shapes telling the stories of beasts and heroes, tragedies and miracles, great feats of power all his own doing. A swirling mass of dreadlocks was piled atop his head, inky black like a sea-monster’s tentacles, with some left out to loop down his neck and shoulders. He wore burnished gold jewelry, heavy necklaces inlaid with massive raw stones that shone luminescent blue-white, and rings in his nose and pointed ears, and stacks of bracelets that made the most delightful noise when he raised his hand and beckoned._

 

_Another elf entered the throneroom. Clearly the chief’s kin, less intensely ornamented. He presented himself with the sort of intentional plainness that all spies did. A forgettable face. He may as well be invisible - save the dazzling emerald green that flashed in his eyes as he looked up at the throne._

 

_“Report.” The chief spoke in an ancient language._

 

_“June gathers his troops.” The spy produced a roll of parchment from behind his back. “Maps and battle plans. The rat means to attack on the night of the full moon festival.”_

 

_The chief glowered. Cowardice and cruelty, expected from the Evanuris._

 

_“Worse yet, Mythal will lend him forces.”_

 

_“Of course. She would be interested in our resources as well, and she’s never been above sending her children to do her dirty work.”_

 

_The chief raised a hand to his head in exasperation. Even his fingertips were covered in black ink._

 

_“I have an idea. But you won’t like it.”_

 

_The ghost of something mischievous flashed through the spy. A little smile. He and the chief were old friends and steadfast allies. The spy was one of few who could tell the chief things he knew he would not like. A wave of the chief’s hand signaled him to continue._

 

_“There is one who walks among them, yet may be sympathetic to-”_

 

_“_ No _.”_

 

_The chief’s voice thundered through the hall, as decisive as the will of God himself. Anyone hearing would understand why the Evanuris feared him, and his kind. The Evanuris saw power and wanted it harnessed in a way they could capitalize on. They were not interested in coexisting with anyone they could not control - and the chief, and his tribe, would never bend the knee._

 

_“I know you don’t trust him. But the Evanuris will listen to him - more than anyone else.”_

 

_The chief shifted uncomfortably on his throne._

 

_“I don’t want that man on my land. He’s a bad omen. Even if he does listen to us, who says he’ll actually help us? He’s more likely to sell us out to June behind our backs.”_

 

_The spy furrowed his brows. How could he explain something he had no proof of? The man in question was a pariah, stigmatized and barely accepted by both the Evanuris and free tribes, his loyalties and motivations constantly in flux. But the spy knew, he just knew. About this, he would be on their side._

 

_“Just... trust me. Let me send him a message. We don’t even have to bring him here - we’ll meet him in the badlands.” His voice softened. “He knows what June will do to us. There are some things even he won’t stand for.”_

 

_“Fine. I will meet with him - but that will not be our only course of action. Take those documents to my war council. When June’s armies come, we will be ready.”_

 

_The spy bowed and disappeared into the shadows with a sound like the rushing wings of a thousand ravens. The chief sat alone on his throne, dread settling heavy over his shoulders._

 

 

 


	4. Three

 

 

Yara watched the caravan approach.

 

It was a dark, dark desert night. She and six other fighters were crouched behind a boulder, dressed all in colors of sand, heads and faces covered. Anyone looking would just see six pairs of eyes, floating in the dunes. But nobody was looking. They’d made sure of that.

 

These slaves were being transported from Minrathous to Vol Dorma. She saw twelve of them, in chains, and wondered what the price was. What amount of money had exchanged hands for these lives? And for what reason? To serve in a noble’s home? To build a new temple, statue, city? Or simply to die? Twisted, but that was the most merciful fate a slave could hope for. They shuffled through the sand with their heads lowered. A small band of mercs led the caravan, while the slavers rode on horseback behind, to oversee. In numbers, they were evenly matched, but surely not in skill. The Devehari elves spent their days in intensive combat training, and they were versed in guerrilla war tactics. From the sand they rose, and eviscerated their foes without even giving them a chance to fight back. 

 

Yara surveyed her squad. Two would use magic to shift the dunes, trap the slavers, and confuse and muddle their minds with hallucinations and panic. Two would pick off as many as they could from the ridge with arrows. And Yara and her best friend Sylvas would descend upon the caravan, kill any surviving slavers or mercs, and free the slaves. She had her twin axes holstered across her back, daggers strapped to her legs, and the snake Majd nestled safely in a leather pouch at her hip.

 

She raised her hand, two fingers pointed to the desert moon. Utter stillness stretched itself out for a breathless moment. Her squad watched, alert and at ready. As she looked at the slaves she said a prayer to Mythal, and was overcome with the purest love a mortal could feel, numinous tender affection and a sort of ferocious protectiveness. Once, many years ago, she had been where they were, in those very same chains. _Hold on, little loves. You will be free soon._ She rode the feeling until it crested and broke, until it swelled within her chest and burst. Then, she brought her hand slicing down through the air in a silent signal, and her squad burst into action.

 

The mages reached into the ether, grabbed hold of whatever they could, and pulled. A great rippling sheet of mana-matter leveraged against solid earth. Space itself was bent and twisted, and the sand beneath the caravan buckled and churned like a storm-ravaged sea. The slavers and mercs were thrown into chaos - but the slaves, chained together, were immobilized and had no choice but to cling to each other. Good. She didn’t want any getting caught in the crossfire. With a volley of arrows at their backs, Yara and Sylvas slid down the bank of sand.

 

One by one, their adversaries fell, riddled with arrows. Blood pooled on the sand, and Yara relished in the sight of it. She and Sylvas first targeted the mercs, as they posed a much bigger threat than the slavers - a slave trader was soft and unskilled in battle, which is why they were happy to hand over piles of coin for protection. But there were no shades of grey when it came to those who were complicit in the buying and selling of lives. She was a whir of blades, her twin axes serving well to cut throats before they could realize they’d been cut. Her battle trance was broken as Sylvas cried out.

 

“Yara! The slavers!”

 

They brandished their curved sword, dripping with blood, in the direction of the slavers. The horses had fled, but the slavers turned and tried to run on foot, scrambling pathetically over the roiling sands. Yara narrowed her eyes and hissed. _Cowards_. She would make them suffer.

 

Yara turned away from the one merc left standing, and not a heartbeat later he was felled by an arrow to the neck. She advanced upon the slavers with anger in her veins and thunder in her eyes. Two pale, pudgy, entirely unremarkable men dressed in silks much too fine for a trek through the desert. She was filled with disgust. When her emotions ran this high, Majd could feel it. He was touched by a rage so black it stirred him to action, for righteous anger was the most Glorious of all.

 

They acted as one unit, perfectly in sync, a deep psychic bond strengthened over the years. He phased out of his physical form, out of the pouch on her hip, and re-materialized behind the slavers something entirely different than he was before. They took no notice - their attention was gripped by the two elves who approached them as Yara and Sylvas removed their headwraps.

 

Yara was only sixteen, and Sylvas too. Not yet old enough to be marked with vallaslin, but each of them already grown to nearly six feet tall. Sylvas was _ta-elgara_ , one who was neither male or female. _Ta-elgara_ were favored of the Gods and friends of the spirits, a blessing bestowed by freedom from the limiting mortal construct of gender. Sylvas was an exceptionally beautiful elf, brown skin and black braids and fire and earth personified. Though they were star student of the shaman and had a future in communing with spirits to guide the clan, they loved combat too much to abandon it entirely, and they and Yara were practically attached at the hip. Yara stood a half-head shorter, just as dark and wild as she’d been as a child. The moonlight glinted ice-cold off her black eyes and the many gold rings she wore in her nose and ears. The slavers had never witnessed beings of such power. Two grown men, and they cowered before the children in front of them. They turned, and tried to climb up the sloping dunes.

 

They were greeted by Majd. He’d blown himself up to be several feet tall, and taken the image of a cobra. His hood flared and blotted out the moon as he hissed, the sound so deep and furious it shook the Earth. Blood and ichor dripped from his fangs, and one of the slavers soiled himself. Trapped between two bloodthirsty elves and a giant serpent, the slavers turned back to Yara and Sylvas. With the flick of her hand, a conjuration, Yara filled one’s throat with sand. His companion watched as he dry-drowned, his eyes bulging and his hands crawling at the air, not even enough room in his lungs for him to make a sound. When his twitching body stilled on the ground, Yara buried her axe in the skull of the other. They both died with fear in their hearts, and she spat on their corpses. Majd found his way back into his pouch, and she and Sylvas turned to the slaves.

 

“Listen!” Her voice was booming, but it needn’t be. She already commanded the attention of all the slaves, especially after that brutal display of justice.

“We are from a clan called Devehari, camped a few miles north. We’ve come to free you. Back at camp we have food, water, and beds for all of you. Those who wish to stay will be welcomed into the clan as family. Those who do not will be safely transported to the alienage in Asariel.”

 

She looked out into a dozen pairs of wide, frightened eyes. A life spent in flux and they’d just witnessed her massacre their captors - they did not know exactly how to feel. How often had they been turned on, before? How many times had their trust been betrayed? She’d been there, too. Her voice broke when she next spoke.

 

“I was born a slave. This clan saved me. They gave me a new life. I can do the same for you, if you’ll let me.”

 

Quiet murmurs, loaded glances. After a moment, they seemed to come to a consensus. The one in front, a tan elf with freckles and red hair, nodded and held out his shackled wrists.

 

“We will come with you.”

 

The rest of Yara’s group had come down from the ridge. Some busied themselves looting the mercs and slavers. The rest produced identical obsidian daggers, sharper than steel, and began breaking chains.

 

They were quiet, skittish, shell-shocked. The tears would come later, after food and sleep. They watched the Devehari with apprehension as, one by one, they were freed. Elves, all of them, ranging from thirteen to thirty. Until she got to the last one.

 

He wasn’t an elf at all. Human. Shorter, stockier, ruddier. It wasn’t unheard of for humans to be traded as slaves - just not as common as elves. He flinched as Yara wedged her dagger in the lock of his shackles.

 

“Filthy savage,” he hissed, staggering backwards. “Keep your hands off me.”

 

Yara simply raised and eyebrow, and continued working at the lock. This one was difficult, jammed.

 

“Don’t bother setting me free. I know what you’ll do with me back at that camp of yours. Flay me alive, feast on my flesh. Sacrifice me to your heathen gods.”

 

She scoffed. “You aren’t to my taste, _shem_ , or my gods’.”

 

The lock broke and he pulled back violently. He was _scared_ of her - honestly scared.

 

“Where are you from?” She attempted to soften her voice. “Did you have a family?”

 

He kept his mouth shut, obstinate, but something in his eyes told her what she needed to know.

 

“We won’t hurt you. You can’t stay with our clan, but we’ll house you for the night. Then to Asariel, where you can find work and passage to wherever your home is.”

 

“Lies. Elven lies. I know what you people are like. They told me... they told me to never trust you.”

 

Yara’s skin felt hot. Sylvas approached over her shoulder and clicked their tongue.

 

“Leave the idiot, _lethallin_. If he wants to die for his bigotry, let him.”

 

Majd spoke to her from his pouch.

 

_They’re right. You won’t convince him. You’re wasting time and energy that could be spent getting the rest of these people back to camp._

 

She ignored her friends and held the man’s gaze. She felt compelled to help him, still, despite everything.

 

“ _Please_. We know these lands, and the creatures they carry. Without our help, you _will_ die.”

 

At her back were her clanmates she’d come with, and all the Elven slaves they’d just freed. A crowd of Elven eyes, watching the exchange, pulled taught like a bowstring. None of them were strangers to this type of treatment.

 

“Better to die in the desert than at the hands of savages.”

 

“Fine.” She yanked off his shackles and threw them, chains and all, to the ground with bitter disappointment. “I can only pray that your death is swift and painless.”

 

She turned her back to him, and the rest of the Elves with her. Sylvas shot her a look like pity before the lot of them began to climb the hill back towards camp. Yara looked over her shoulder only once, when they’d reached the crest.

 

The man was gone, as if he’d never existed, and as far as the eye could see there was nothing but a vast expanse of sand and sky. She looked beyond the horizon and felt a pang of longing so intense it hurt. They stopped as many caravans as they could, saved as many slaves as they could, but it was like a single grain of sand in a desert of injustice just as vast as this one. She felt the weight of wrongs left unrighted, souls she could not save even if she lived forever, and a big wide world full of wondrous things and evil, evil people who would hate her no matter what just for the point of her ears. The small scale, this life she led here and now, it would never be enough. _She_ would never be enough.

 

Once again she turned forward, and continued the journey back to camp.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Camp was bustling with activity when they returned. The entire clan prepared for the arrival of the survivors. The healers’ tents burned herbs, smoke to calm and clear the mind.Others helped to make piles of honey-date cakes, brew mint tea, and prepare blankets and bedrolls. Yara led the freed slaves into camp as though she were their shepard, and they were greeted with warmth and care.

 

She and Lailani oversaw the process, and for a while, it pushed her troubles to the back of her mind. Despite how much she enjoyed slaughtering slavers, _this_ was her favorite part of raiding caravans. Bringing them back to camp. It reminded her of when she’d first been rescued by her Keeper, given new life. It made her feel hopeful. But soon the work was done, the survivors were sleeping (however fitfully,) and she could no longer ignore the dissatisfaction that festered in the back of her mind. She excused herself to her tent, and Lailani let her go - Yara had always been a moody child, moreso now that she was growing into a young woman.

 

Yara’s tent was small, and cozy. She waved her hand and a small lantern flickered to life with warm amber magelight. The packed-sand floor was covered in threadbare rugs and cushions, and she’d filled the space with a collection of curios from all over Thedas. A crystal ball from Rivain, a carved stone dog from Ferelden, and a cracked Orlesian court mask. All salvaged from raided caravans, or purchased from traveling merchants. When she touched them, she could _feel_ their lands. She threw herself on a pile of cushions without even taking off her sandals or untying her hair, and let out an affected sigh.

 

Soon, she felt the familiar weight of Majd. His scales were cooling on skin hot from sand and anger. He wrapped himself around her arm, and then slithered up to rest on her chest, just close enough that his flickering tongue could brush her jaw. She closed her eyes. She inhaled. She felt grounded, and comforted.

 

“Are all humans like that, Majd?”

 

“Not _all_ of them. But many, yes.”

 

“Why?”

 

There was legitimate pain in that question. She knew the brutality of humankind very well - but she’d never had such a close encounter with such barefaced prejudice. He paused.

 

“There is no easy answer, child. All of mankind’s history has been searching. Humans hate Elves because they have been taught to. Because you are different. Because they are afraid. Because it’s easy.”

 

“Why did I still want to save him, then?”

 

“Because you are good, and righteous. More than most people in the world, human or Elven.” _That’s why I’m with you, child._

 

She was not satisfied with that. It was rarely satisfying, just to know that you did the right thing when you felt like the entire universe was made up of *wrong* things. He felt that she was on the precipice of making a decision that was very important to the both of them. What harm would a little nudge do?

 

“Don’t trouble yourself over it. You won’t have to deal with humans much. The clan will keep you isolated from much of the ugliness of the outside world. Plan well, and you can go your entire life without many confrontations like the one you just had.”

 

She shot up, and he slid to the floor. She was pacing, and he coiled himself in the corner to avoid her frenzied feet. Her heart was pounding, her mind spinning. It was as if a very long-burning fuse had finally reached it’s end. She stopped, suddenly, as though coming to a conclusion.

 

“That’s not what I want.”

 

_Good._

 

“Why would I ever want to leave here? The clan saved my life, and I love my Keeper. She trains me to be First. She needs me. I’m safe here, and happy. It’s my home. Why would I ever want to leave? Why would I ever want to go... out there? To a world full of bad people and bad things?”

 

He was quick with an answer.

 

“Because you know you can change it.”

 

She shook her head. Disbelief, denial. She was just a slave girl with good luck. She could change nothing, affect nothing.

 

“Look at what you’ve done for your clan, already. Since you were brought here, the clan has grown threefold. You brought them to my oasis, and saved them from poverty and starvation. You started the caravan raids and offered to countless others the blessings that Lailani gave to you, at the same time building and strengthening the clan’s numbers. I know you don’t realize it, but... you’ve already been doing it, here. And you can do it elsewhere, too.”

 

She watched him intently and chewed on her lip. The tent grew dark, the magelight lantern muffled, as though a storm were coming.

 

"Imagine what you could do with the _world,_ Yara. I've been your companion for many years, and if there's one thing I can say with absolute certainty, it's that you have a destiny _much_ bigger than this clan. Your Keeper knows this, too. She will understand. She doesn’t own you. Nobody does.”

 

She didn’t believe him. But she didn’t _not_ believe him, either.

 

“You know what I am. I am Glory. You know that I chose you, and that I wouldn’t choose you without reason. Think about it - I know you already have been, but think about it seriously. You don’t have to act right away. It will take time, for you to accept it. The sooner you begin, the better.”

 

With that, he blinked out of existence, returning to the world of spirits as he so often did. A reminder that he was her companion, but not her kin. She was left alone with a gnawing pit in her stomach to come to terms with the truth.

 

 


	5. Four

 

 

 

Fires burned all around her, acrid smoke filling the night sky. She sat in the center of a circle of elves - drummers, dancers, shamans chanting. The entire clan Devehari had gathered for her vallaslin ceremony, and as she looked around, she saw innumerable beloved faces. Many of them had been freed from slavery by her personally. Many of them owed her their lives. The others had already been part of the clan when she’d been brought to it as a young child, and they’d watched her grow into the woman she was today, her eighteenth birthday. The vallaslin ceremony was meant to mark the coming of age, the transition into adulthood. But she’d always had an old soul. She’d come of age a long while ago. This was purely symbolic, and entirely bittersweet. They came together, on this evening, to celebrate her - and to bid her farewell.

 

She sat crosslegged by the fire, wearing nothing but the cloth that bound her chest. Sweat pooled at the base of her throat, and draped itself across her shoulders. In the firelight she looked like she was hewn of bronze, and some in the crowd saw an image of the statues and monuments that may be made of her in the future. Majd was coiled on the stone next to her, his emerald scales gleaming, and the Keeper prepared her instruments with ritual deliberation.

 

First, there was the ink. In a small clay pot, a liquid mixture of chalk, minerals, and lyrium harvested from the desert’s deepest and most ancient caverns. Yara extended her hand, and Lailani produced an obsidian dagger. With love in her eyes, she drew the dagger along Yara’s palm. Yara made a fist, squeezing hard, and her own blood dripped into the ink. It was handed off to the shamans, among which was Sylvas, to be mixed and blessed. Lailani moved on to the needle - a huge, wicked thing. She held it in the fire for a few moments, to sterilize it, and then inserted it into a small wooden handle. Force magic would drive the needle repeatedly into skin, implanting the ink permanently and making the body holy. Spirit running through her blood, sacred glyphs as a show of devotion to their ancestor Gods and their pride. The gathered crowd watched intently, singing ancient hymns to the beat of drums and reed-flutes.

 

Lailani had grown so much older, in the years Yara had been with her. Her hair was stark-white, her chestnut skin lined and weathered like sandstone rocks. To Yara, she still looked young and beautiful. She bit back tears. They had already cried so much. It wasn’t goodbye forever, Yara would come back someday, when her work was done. That didn’t make it any easier to leave. Her Keeper squeezed her hand, smiled sadly, and indicated that she was ready to begin. The pot of ink was returned. It was stark white. Lailani dipped her needle in, and for an agonizing moment it hovered above Yara’s skin. Her heart pounded ferociously in her chest.

 

The needle entered her skin for the first time, and the rest of the world fell away. The music, the people - all muted, muffled, strange. She turned her eyes to heaven. Elgar’nan. The pain was all-consuming, divine. White-hot fire filling her veins and her mind. She could not escape it. She could not turn away. She could not be distracted. She felt it all, excruciatingly, exquisitely.

 

As she worked, the Keeper recited a prayer to Elgar’nan, for that was the God that Yara devoted herself to. And fitting. Vengeance was her driving force, anger her compass. Mythal was the moon, Elgar’nan the sun. Two energies - feminine and masculine, cold and hot, love and hate, water and fire, mother and father, Queen and King, adaptive and reactive. Perhaps it would be better if she could be more like Mythal. But she’d been touched with Elgar’nan’s fire, and it was with her always, brash and bitter and vital. The tattoos were first laid across her face - over her cheekbones and forehead, down the flat bridge of her leonine nose, through the lips. The softer the skin, and the closer to bone, the more completely the pain filled her mind. After what seemed like an eternity, the needle moved down her throat. Collarbones, shoulders, arms. Linework like veins, palms open to the sky. Pain became her constant. A strange new state of being. Had she ever not felt this? Her spirit was being forced out of her body by sheer tactile unpleasantness. She understood, now, the practical purpose of the vallaslin. Transcending the physical was a learned skill.

 

There was, of course, a symbolic aspect to it as well, which Yara came to understand deeply during the hours at the fire. To be an elf - to be Dalish \- was pain unending. Glory like Thedas has not known since, a throne at the height of all creation, life eternal and magical and numinous - gone. Ripped from them. Brutalized by humans, a people younger and greener. Cities razed, empires burned. Sold as slaves and slaughtered en masse to fuel the appetites of men who yearned to be Gods. Subjugated. Decimated. Splintered into tribes, denied a permanent home by a world that did not want them, deposed royalty turned to nomads. Or even worse, forced into human city slums, beggars and urchins under their thumb. It was a sorrowful existence, and they were a mournful people. To know that - to truly understand that - it needed to be felt. Physically. To sit with the trauma, get cozy with the pain, no choice but to feel it as intensely as possible. A rather solemn coming of age, but it prepared every young elf for a rather solemn adulthood. The Dalish had struggled for centuries and would struggle for centuries more before their standing was likely to change, but just by existing, every elf was bound to fight. Every moment of every day, a ceaseless battle with no victory in sight. And it was still a better fate than slavery. It was still a rescue, a respite. There were degrees of misery. At least this way, she had her freedom and her pride. At least this way she lived at the behest of no-one else, even if she had to battle constantly just to ensure it. She was grateful for it. For this pain, for this struggle, she thanked the Gods every day. This would be her warpaint.

 

 

The ceremony ended. The needle left her skin, and the pain stopped, and the world came rushing back in. In hyper-amplified detail, the drums pounding like thunder, the fire roaring, the crowd that surrounded her stretching to the horizon, millions of faces and voices, more than existed in the world. She had been holding her breath without realizing it, and she gasped and sputtered. Majd gently nudged her hand, and her breathing steadied, and her senses stabilized. Lailani was looking at her like she was an entirely different person than before. She felt like an entirely different person than before. Someone brought her a large piece of polished glass and held it in front of her. She blinked at her own reflection. Right now, her skin was red and angry and raised around the tattoos, but by the morning it would subside. For years she’d looked at the adults of her clan, with their vallaslin. But they seemed so foreign on her, so strange. Now, she was duality. She was dark and light. She was an ancient relic, she was the sand and the stones, she was lightning, she was screaming Dalish and would be forever and ever until her flesh rotted off her bones. She was different than before. She put her head in hands and cried heartily.

 

There was a feast laid out, and casks of alhemah - the Devehari liquor made of fermented cactus - and everyone in the clan wanted to shake her hand and congratulate her. Typically, they would present the vallaslin recipient with gifts, but they knew Yara could not take them with her when she left. She wanted to be alone, but there would be plenty of time for that starting tomorrow. The night was cool and pleasant. So she ate, and she drank, and she let herself be congratulated.

 

Sylvas approached with two stone cups, and gave one to Yara. With a silent smile, they cheered each other, and drank deeply. Sylvas spoke first.

 

“Are you afraid?”

 

For a moment, she was silent, thinking. She could say no. It would give them greater piece of mind, when she left. But she could not lie to her best friend.

 

“Yes.”

 

Sylvas laughed.

 

“Good! That will keep you alive out there.”

 

“Are you afraid?” Yara countered.

 

Sylvas looked down into their cup. Only a few days prior, it had been announced that in Yara’s stead, Sylvas would become First of the clan. Yara herself couldn’t have chosen better.

 

“I am. Afraid I can never live up to you. Afraid that when you do amazing things out there, word will travel back, and the clan will think - that’s what we could have had. Afraid I will fail. Afraid I will miss you too much.”

 

Yara grew very quiet, and squeezed her friend’s hand. She opened her mouth to speak, but Sylvas was not yet done.

 

“But, I know these are foolish fears. I’ve been meditating on this, a great deal, and the spirits soothe me. They tell me this is the right decision. They tell me this will be best for both of us. Lailani and I will keep the clan. When you return, we’ll be strong and thriving, and we’ll throw you a massive party, even bigger than this one. And you can share with me the wisdom you’ve gained in the outside world. And I expect lavish gifts and souvenirs.”

 

Yara smiled and nudged Sylvas playfully with her elbow. They would be a better First than she would. Yara had never doubted that.

 

Next, Lailani stole her away. They walked a distance away from the crowds, until they were alone under the waxing moon.

 

Her Keeper drew her into an embrace, and laid a gentle kiss on her forehead, over the tattoos she’d placed there earlier.

 

“I am so proud of you, my child. I know how difficult it was, for you to come to me about wanting to leave. The most important kind of courage to have is the kind that lets you speak your mind, and be true to yourself. Now, I will do the same.”

 

“When I found you, out in the desert, I had given up. I had left the clan, because I believed I had failed them, and gone out there to die. I had no hope left. This cruel world had beaten it out of me.”

 

Yara said nothing, but listened intently.

 

“When my life was close to leaving me, I heard a voice. A spirit, calling out. Telling me not to give up, not to lose hope. That they were sending me a hero, who would save us. And then I found you.”

 

She felt the ground swimming beneath her. To hear such a thing, about oneself... it echoed what Majd had told her before.

 

“And the spirits were right. You did save us.”

 

“No,” Yara choked out. “No, hahren, you saved me.”

 

A bittersweet smile.

 

“Perhaps we saved each other, then. Of course I don’t want you to leave, but... it would be selfish of me to keep you here. You’ve already done everything you can for us. There are others out there who need you, desperately.”

 

She was sick of crying, but she couldn’t help it. She hugged her Keeper tight, and through the tears, thanked her every way she knew how. If I am a hero, it’s only because you made me one.

 

Later that night, Majd found her sitting alone on a ridge overlooking the desert, deep into her jug of liquor. She watched the sands, and tried to imagine what it would be like to travel through them alone (well, not completely alone.) She didn’t even know where she was going, yet. She felt fear and excitement, in equal parts, for all the unknown that awaited her.

 

“Are you ready?” Majd asked.

 

She turned to look at him. His question was loaded, and she knew that. What he was really asking - do you believe? In yourself? That you are destined for greatness, that you have a higher purpose? Have you come to terms with it yet? 

 

She’d had weeks to stew over it, since the last caravan raid. And after the conversation with her Keeper that night, she could answer confidently.

 

“Yes. I am.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

She left with the rising of the sun. The desert was painted in gentle shades of pink and gold - it almost looked inviting. She had one halla, packed with as much as it could carry - provisions, tools, weapons. Nothing sentimental. No wasted space.

 

The clan gathered, quiet and solemn and bleary-eyed, to see her off. She did not cry, then. Majd was draped around her shoulders, and she was dressed simply. The shaman said one final prayer over her, and she left.

 

The clan watched her until she disappeared over the horizon. One by one they returned to camp, to try and proceed with life as usual. At the end, only the Keeper and her new First remained, hands locked, watching the distance for a long while as though they expected her to change her mind and come running back.

 

She did not.


End file.
